Wikimedia Foundation Chair Florence Devouard announced on Saturday that Brad Patrick had left his position as the Foundation's Interim Executive Director, and will focus exclusively on his role as the foundation's general counsel. Patrick was hired as general counsel and interim executive director in June (see archived story). Devouard noted:
Brad has done a great deal to help the Foundation move forward in such areas as governance, technology and contracting, audit, hiring, and many other things. With the conclusion of the fundraiser and the immediate financial future of the Foundation secure, now is the time to look ahead to the selection of a new Executive Director to manage the operations of the Foundation. This will enable Brad to focus on developing the role of General Counsel, and addressing a backlog of complex legal questions the Foundation faces moving forward.
Devouard also announced that "a few days ago", the Foundation had hired Laurie Nash, an executive recruiter from the firm Phillips Oppenheim, to help the Foundation in its search for a new Executive Director.
On Thursday, Trustee Oscar van Dillen announced the hiring of Delphine Ménard as a part-time Chapters Coordinator. Prior to her hiring, Ménard had served as the head of the Chapters committee, and was a member of the Wikimédia France Board from April 2005 until January 2007.
In yet another mailing list post, Devouard clarified the current organizational structure of the foundation. Danny Wool reports to Trustee Erik Möller on non-administrative issues, such as grants. On administrative issues, Wool reports to Chief Operations Officer Carolyn Doran, as does administrative assistant Barbara Brown. Doran, Communications Manager Sandra Ordonez, and general counsel Brad Patrick all report directly to Devouard. Ménard reports to Trustee Oscar van Dillen on chapter-related issues, and on technical issues, Chief Technical Officer Brion Vibber, developer Tim Starling, and networking coordinator Mark Bergsma all report to Trustee Jan-Bart de Vreede. A chart of the relationships can be found below:
Noting that a few trustees had no formal relationships defined, Devouard said "Due to [his] background, [Michael] will be very involved in financial and audit considerations. Jimbo is more focused on public relations and licenses discussions. Kat is spending time on various legal-related, licenses discussions and is in charge of an assignment not yet made public :-)"
Another post by Devouard, clarifying a question about the role of Brion Vibber and other technical advisors, hinted that the Foundation is looking into hiring a new Chief Technical Officer. Vibber weighed in on the issue, noting that "In theory I'm the lead, but we're a small team and generally operate internally by consensus agreement. In reality I'm lead programmer far more than I'm 'CTO'."
Several months of rancor over the IRC channels used for Wikipedia-related discussion, in particular #wikipedia-en-admins, resulted in a rejected request for arbitration last week. It also brought about an unusual public statement from part of the Arbitration Committee, amid various efforts to deal with the perceived problems of IRC.
The request for arbitration, submitted by Irpen, called for this "admin-only" channel to be shut down, following an earlier pronouncement by the Arbitration Committee that due to cases of "gross incivility" on IRC, they would take IRC behavior into account in arbitration cases "if it results in disruption on Wikipedia." The #wikipedia-en-admins channel was originally set up at the request of Jimbo Wales, to provide him with a forum where he could quickly reach a sizable number of trusted editors, who could deal with pressing problems in articles that he wished to keep confidential. Among the complaints that have been raised about it, aside from incivility itself, are charges that the channel has been used to coordinate retribution against other editors (notably in a block of Giano), and the presence of several users who are not in fact administrators. Channel participants, meanwhile, have objected to the breaches of confidentiality involved, since channel policy prohibits the publication of logs, which the critics in turn complain prevents them from presenting evidence of its problems.
After some initial uncertainty about accepting the case, it was rejected after a majority of the Committee concluded it fell outside their purview. The extent of the Arbitration Committee's jurisdiction and the acceptability of evidence from outside Wikipedia itself has been a tricky subject in previous situations. Instead, several arbitrators presented their personal views regarding IRC in separate statements. UninvitedCompany wrote the longest statement, while Paul August and Kirill Lokshin indicated that they largely agreed with its contents. Among the points addressed was a criticism of fellow arbitrator Jdforrester, one of the operators (or chanops) who controls access to the channel, for "making an implicit personal attack" on Giano's allies. (Jdforrester did not participate in the public deliberation of the case and would presumably have been recused had it been accepted.)
Those acquainted with Jdforrester know him as having a very sardonic wit, and the comments in question appeared to be rather over-the-top and not intended to be taken seriously. UninvitedCompany explained that he declined to credit this, as in his view it was particularly inappropriate for someone in a position of power to joke at the expense of the powerless. Some of the channel's critics gave little sign that they found any humour in the comments.
Further elaborating on his statement, UninvitedCompany said that he made his views public partly because he felt that a balanced middle ground wasn't being represented. The debate has at times appeared to put IRC critics in a position of damning all external discussion of Wikipedia, or denigrating the contributions of people who don't primarily write articles. Meanwhile, IRC participants become defensive and sometimes dismiss real concerns about activity there, giving them all a bad image on account of misbehavior by a few. UninvitedCompany described the middle ground as a position that IRC "is fundamentally a useful resource" but some steps should be taken to improve it. He encouraged more people to participate in the channel and help discourage inappropriate behavior.
Although IRC is the current focus of much attention, the dispute is also deep-rooted and has its origins elsewhere, and the emphasis on IRC as the problem is a relatively recent development. Some of the origins trace to discussions that took place primarily on the administrators' noticeboard a year ago. The incident involved a series of blocks and desysoppings of a number of established editors, itself the culmination of earlier disputes over userboxes.
Giano was one of several users blocked then, and the incident remains a sore spot. The issue flared up again when Carnildo, who had performed the initial blocks in question, had his administrator status restored in a controversial decision by the bureaucrats when support for the action seemed to fall below the usual threshold for approval. Ongoing dissatisfaction with that again boiled over on the administrators' noticeboard, leading also to a request for arbitration.
Increasingly hostile discussion surrounding this case resulted in a three-hour block of Giano (now using the account User:Giano II after apparently scrambling his original account password in frustration earlier) for "nasty personal attacks" in October. On this occasion, as with several subsequent blocks in December, Giano was unblocked by another administrator within an hour or two. Meanwhile, information began circulating that some of these blocks were being discussed in the IRC channel prior to implementation.
The arbitration case resulted in, among other things, a reminder to Jdforrester to maintain appropriate decorum and a conclusion that Tony Sidaway and Kelly Martin had given up admin status and other abilities "under controversial circumstances". While this was primarily on account of activity on Wikipedia, their participation on IRC became a key part of continuing debates, especially as the latter two were still participating in the "admin-only" channel.
In view of the controversy, Tony Sidaway had his access level to the #wikipedia-en-admins channel reduced, at his own request, so that he would no longer have chanop privileges. He had never actually used those privileges in any case, and he does continue to participate in the channel. The description of the channel has been clarified to indicate that it is unofficial, used "mainly" by admins but also by others, and that access is at the discretion of the chanops.
In a case of living up (or down?) to its contribution to the English language, AstroTurf became the object of an astroturfing effort on Wikipedia. A public relations firm for the brand was revealed to have been editing the article, as well as that of a competing brand of artificial turf, FieldTurf.
Beginning on Thursday, 1 February, a number of edits from the IP address 216.248.156.53 started appearing on both articles. These added speedy deletion tags to sections of the FieldTurf article, claiming that they were spam, and removed references to FieldTurf and other unfavorable information from the AstroTurf article. The IP address was identified based on WHOIS records as belonging to Richard French & Associates, a North Carolina public relations firm now known as French | West | Vaughan. The person responsible then registered an account as User:Tygast411, and self-identified on the user page as an Art Director for that agency.
Included on the client list for French | West | Vaughan is the Michigan company General Sports Turf Systems. That company was renamed General Sports Venue last year, and in December announced an exclusive partnership to market the AstroTurf brand. The deal includes Archie Manning, father of Super Bowl MVP Peyton Manning, as spokesperson for AstroTurf, and the timing of this incident so close to the Super Bowl is intriguing.
The marketing has emphasized an effort to rehabilitate AstroTurf's reputation. Older installations of AstroTurf have been frequently criticized in the sports world as too hard, being installed over concrete and failing to adequately simulate grass field conditions. It has been cited as increasing injury risks, including in circumstances where players have been injured without being touched, and has further contributed to the lexicon with the phrase turf toe.
FieldTurf is the trademark of another company that makes synthetic turf, which is installed over a mixture designed to better imitate the feel of natural soil. Surfaces of this type have received more positive reviews and gained a significant presence in the market. The more advanced design has been the subject of litigation between the two brands, which also compete for contracts to install their products on athletic fields in North America.
With Wikipedia editors watchful in the aftermath of the Microsoft editing controversy, the activity on these articles produced a few rounds of reverts over the disputed content. Tygast411 began discussing the issue on the talk pages after registering, and eventually after having the conflict of interest policy pointed out, agreed to focus on participating there instead. He also provided a response to this story, found on the talk page, declaring his intent was "only to remove existing marketing language, incorrect information, and update existing information to make the article both more neutral and more informative."
This is not the first case of Wikipedia image-burnishing from the sports world. Activity on the recently renamed Delta Center arena in Utah was traced to both EnergySolutions, the company that bought the naming rights to the facility, and a company owned by Larry H. Miller, owner of the arena and the Utah Jazz franchise that plays there.
WikiWorld is a weekly comic, carried by the Signpost, that highlights a few of the fascinating but little-known articles in the vast Wikipedia archives. The text for each comic is excerpted from one or more existing Wikipedia articles. WikiWorld offers visual interpretations on a wide range of topics: offbeat cultural references and personality profiles, obscure moments in history and unlikely slices of everyday life - as well as "mainstream" subjects with humorous potential.
Cartoonist Greg Williams developed the WikiWorld project in cooperation with the Wikimedia Foundation, and is releasing the comics under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 license for use on Wikipedia and elsewhere. Williams works as a visual journalist for the US-based The Tampa Tribune, a daily newspaper in Tampa, Florida. He also has worked as an illustrator and designer at newspapers in Dubuque, Iowa, and Dayton, Ohio.
Following up on the earlier New York Times report of courts citing Wikipedia (see archived story), a law professor asked his research assistant to determine how many law review articles cite Wikipedia. The answer: 545 articles listed in Westlaw cite Wikipedia, and another 125 mention the project without citing it as an authority.
Harvard Business School published a case study about Wikipedia, focusing on the debate over whether to delete an article on Enterprise 2.0. Professor Andrew McAfee, who coined the term the article describes and also co-wrote the case, also offered some additional questions about the competing philosophies of deletionism and inclusionism, and the contrast between Wikipedia and Nupedia.
Thanks to cascading protection, deleted articles can now be protected via syntax at protected titles without having to create an article with {{deletedpage}} to enforce protection. The system has already been used on several vandal targets, and articles frequently recreated by spambots, though the system has not replaced {{deletedpage}}.
The Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year competition has begun. In the first round, which lasts until 14 February, users with at least 100 edits on any local project or Commons can vote on up to 5 of the 321 pictures. 10 finalists will be selected for a final round of voting from 15 February through 28 February.
Brandchannel announced this week its top five brands of the year. Wikipedia ranked fourth, behind Google, Apple, Inc. and YouTube, and ahead of Starbucks, in its global rankings. The survey should be taken with a grain of salt, however, as it was Internet-based.
Weekly newsmagazine Newsweek interviewed Jimbo Wales this week. The article discussed the creation of Wikipedia, protection and semi-protection, Web 2.0, and Wales' much-publicized interest in creating an open search project under Wikia. The article also mentioned a meeting between Wales and Microsoft co-founder and executive chairman Bill Gates at the World Economic Forum in Davos: "I talked to Bill Gates there--the first time I've met him. Lately there've been reports in the media about Microsoft versus Wikipedia, which we think is really silly because we're not battling Microsoft. It was a very brief chat--he said he liked Wikipedia."
Wikipedia was again referenced on another NBC TV show, this time on the American version of The Office. In the 1 February, 2007 episode entitled "Ben Franklin," Michael Scott misuses the phrase "Droit de seigneur." Jim Halpert, in a talking head, explains how Michael misused the phrase, as "confirmed by Wikipedia."
Wikipedia was also referenced on the CW Television Network's Veronica Mars, in its 23 January episode "Show Me the Monkey." The title character looks up the origin of the color manila on Wikipedia. Both references come just a few weeks after the sitcom 30 Rock referenced Wikipedia in its 18 January episode entitled "The Head and the Hair," the first time Wikipedia had been referenced in a sitcom. Before this, Fox's drama Prison Break showed the site in an October episode.
A report in the New York Times on 29 January, 2007 by Noam Cohen entitled Courts Turn to Wikipedia, but Selectively showed "that Wikipedia is frequently cited by judges around the country, involving serious issues and the bizarre". This story was also picked in the UK by The Guardian as US judges use Wikipedia as a courtroom source, however this highlighted the bizarre rather than the serious.
After previous attempts at featuring sounds, the featured sound candidates page was opened for nominations. Two sounds are currently up for featuring; none have yet reached featured status.
Five users were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: Daniel.Bryant (nom), Yandman (nom), Qwghlm (nom), Chrislk02 (nom), and Jersey Devil (nom).
Twenty-two articles were promoted to featured status last week: Chelsea F.C., Vijayanagara Empire, Hurricane Ismael, Eastern Suburbs & Illawarra railway line, Sydney, Hollaback Girl, Same-sex marriage in Spain, Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria, The Well of Loneliness, Harry McNish, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, Triceratops, Battle of Svolder, Baby Gender Mentor, Polar coordinate system, Adolfo Farsari, Frank Black, The Scout Association of Hong Kong, Effects of Hurricane Isabel in Maryland and Washington, D.C., Mutual Broadcasting System, Hurricane Erika (1997), History of Lithuania (1219–1295), and The Four Stages of Cruelty.
Two articles were de-featured last week: Illmatic and Tank.
Three lists were promoted to featured status last week: List of defense of marriage amendments to U.S. state constitutions by type, List of Manchester United F.C. players, and List of RahXephon media.
The following featured articles were displayed last week on the Main Page as Today's featured article: New Radicals, Regulamentul Organic, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Seabirds, Syed Ahmed Khan, Ecclesiastical heraldry, and T-34.
The following featured pictures were displayed last week on the Main Page as picture of the day: Mexican redknee tarantula, Gordon Parks' works, Indian highways, Lion, STS-1, Black-chinned hummingbird, and Match.
Six pictures were promoted to featured status last week:
The <gallery> tag can now accept three new attributes: perrow, widths, and heights. For instance, <gallery perrow="5" widths="80" heights="60"> will fit each image into a 80×60-pixel box instead of the usual 120×120-pixel box, but it will have five images per row instead of four. As always, use care to avoid problems for people using low resolutions, some of whom have difficulty with even the standard 600-pixel-wide gallery. (Simetrical, T8987, r19721)
It is now possible to vertically align images by using the new image keywords baseline, sub, super, top, text-top, middle, bottom, and text-bottom. This will generally only be useful for mixing images in with text: it cannot vertically position anything relative to a containing table cell or the like, only relative to text's em box. The exact meanings of all the codes can be found at the World Wide Web Consortium's website (note that the percentage, length, and inherit properties are not available). (Simetrical, T10535, r19720)
The minority of blocks with autoblocking disabled will now have "autoblock disabled" stated explicitly in Special:Log/block (which was recently updated to mention this information), while the majority with autoblock enabled will not mention this. Previously the reverse was true: those with autoblocking enabled explicitly stated that, while those with autoblocking disabled said nothing. The new format is more consistent with Special:Ipblocklist. (Andrew Garrett, r19697)
Inputboxes set up to search will now behave like the "Search" button, not "Go": they will not bring the user directly to a page by that name if one exists. (Benutzer:Eneas, T9318, r19700)
When a single reference is called in many places, the letters used to link back to the places where it was called will now wrap if there are so many that they fill the width of the page, rather than stretching the page. (Simetrical, T10768, r19790)
A "printable version" link will now appear even for pages that have no text. This can be used for categories with members but no description, or images from the Wikimedia Commons. (Brion Vibber, T10875, r19791)
Some bugs were fixed:
Some updates were made to non-English messages, specifically:
Internationalization help is always appreciated! See m:Localization statistics for how complete the translations of languages you know are, and post any updates to Mediazilla.
The Arbitration Committee opened one case this week, and closed five cases.
